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To: GovernmentShrinker
We increasingly have hard-working responsible people, who take responsibility for their own financial well-being and healthy lifestyles, forced to subsidize those who who spend most of their waking hours lounging in front of the TV stuffing themselves. This is simply unsustainable, and the longer it goes on, the uglier the end will be.

That's not always the case. Many of my friends (college students and recent graduates) almost never see the doctor or go to the hospital but have to pay insurance premiums and Medicare taxes anyways. The reality is that Medicare, like Social Security, is a generational redistribution of wealth from younger or middle-aged citizens and taxpayers to the "elderly" and "retired."

I predict massive and severe tax increases. There may be reduction in benefits, but older, retired folks will not give up on their entitlements, especially since they believe that they are simply getting back what they paid for, through taxes, and they will voluntarily damn the younger generations if they must.

31 posted on 04/30/2008 9:09:36 AM PDT by rabscuttle385 (Republican...because not everyone can be on welfare.)
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To: rabscuttle385

I think if you dug down into the numbers, you’d find that Medicare isn’t an intergenerational wealth transfer at all, but rather a transfer from the working classes (especially the middle and upper classes who work) to the non-working classes. All you need to get on Medicare is to get kidney failure, even if you’re 20 years old. And the welfare class has a huge incidence of self-inflicted diabetes and accompanying high blood pressure, which most refuse to manage effectively, even when Medicaid is willing to pay all the expenses.

So huge numbers of them come down with kidney failure way before reaching the age threshold for which Medicare has been sold to voters, and immediately start getting full coverage for EVERY medical condition, in addition to dialysis and other kidney failure treatments. Most of them are obese and smoke, so they have a long list of medical problems, and if they ever worked, it wasn’t for very long, because they went on disability welfare early in their adult lives, and wasn’t at an income that involves paying much tax of any kind, since they’re poorly educated and not any more motivated to succeed at a career than to take care of their health. This is largely being paid for in taxes on middle-aged and older workers’ earnings, and retired people’s investment and pension income.


32 posted on 04/30/2008 9:21:16 AM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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